Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Israel and Palestine: Peace for all or peace for none

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Gloria Emeagwali

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May 21, 2021, 1:49:14 PM5/21/21
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The thing to note is that the apartheid state of South Africa was established in 1948, the same year as the establishment of the state of Israel -  and the British were involved in both.

The British created the foundation of South African apartheid separatism, in 1910, by excluding Black nations from the  Union of South Africa, and elevating the Dutch Afrikaners to positions of leadership and hegemony, after this period.

In the case of Israel, the same British establishment created the Balfour Agreement of 1917 that offered a homeland for the Jewish minority in Palestine, then a component of the Ottoman Empire. Fast forward to   1948 and  after, and  the exclusion and  expulsion of millions of Palestinians from the newly created homeland of Israel, would continue.

The  two siblings, South Africa and Israel,  committed atrocities and violated human rights for decades, but the apartheid regime of South Africa, conceded defeat in 1990,  and turned over a new leaf - somewhat.

Israel, the twin, continued with its atrocities, opportunistically  citing holy passages of divine intervention and promise for its land grab.

Interestingly enough, Reverend Francois Malan, a founder of South African  apartheid, would take a slightly different  path for his own toxic territorial expansionist venture. He would build on the 1912 Natives Act, that initially allocated  seven percent of South African land to the Black population, about five times in size, and create his Bantustan separatist policy for his own “Palestinians” in the 1951 Bantu Authorities Act.

As for Israel, well this site sheds 
light on the ongoing issue of land grab:



Gloria Emeagwali 

On Thu, May 20, 2021 at 23:48 Sabella <sab...@gmail.com> wrote:

The

State of Israel has been in existence since 1948/1949. Rightfully so! They

deserve to live in peace and security. However, they cannot and should not deny

the Palestinians their inalienable right to statehood; they cannot and should

not deny the Palestinians the right to live in peace and security. Until the US

and the rest of the United Nations Security Council members acquiesces to the

wishes of the Palestinians to become a sovereign state – recognized and a fully

functioning member of the UN and other international organizations – the world

will continue to witness these one-sided carnages.  Unless Palestine becomes a sovereign state,

there will never be peace and serenity in that neighborhood. Never! Military

might or not -- unless there is peace for all -- there will be peace for none.

Something else: we pretend not to know that much of the hostility and resentment

in the Middle is traceable to the Israeli-Palestinian problem. The world, and

indeed, the Middle East will be a much better place if we inject justice and

fairness into the equation.





Sabella

O. Abidde









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Ibrahim Abdullah

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May 21, 2021, 3:28:49 PM5/21/21
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Gloria:
Both the apartheid and Zionist models were yanked from American history--how the settlers not immigrants committed the first genocide in modern history. Even Hitler who wanted the Jews out took his model from America. 
America is the model colonial settler state in modern history. 

Harrow, Kenneth

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May 21, 2021, 6:37:34 PM5/21/21
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i agree that the al jazeera posting gloria cited is a good place to begin.
it shows that the issues are complex and have two sides., gloria's account is one-sided.
for instance, during the period in the 1930s and 1940s when jews were being persecuted and then killed by the nazis and their allies, the british imposed embargos on jewish emigration to israel.
gloria cites 1948 as twin dates for s africa and israel, as if their histories were parallel. i disagree. apartheid, that is separation by practice and eventually law, was there in south africa for centuries, long before the british came, and when they did, it was over the opposition of the afrikaners who believed in enslaving africans, and fought a war against the british. the moderation of repressive afrikaner practices by the british ended when the afrikaners won the election in 1948, and formalized the apartheid that was already there. as for the opposition to them, it was the coalition created by the anc, that included communists and, in fact, liberal jewish whites, who fought the apartheid regime, and in some instances died.

the jews in palestine were a small fraction of the population, under the ottoman empire, then under the british. the british attempts to limit jewish immigration led to the bombing of the king david hotel in 1946, when jewish radicals were fighting against the british colonial rulers.
why were they so reckless and violent? 6 million jews had just died in europe, and there were millions of survivors in camps or flight with no country willing to take them.

in immigrating to israel, many tried to live in harmony with their arab neighbors. others sought to displace them. the response was similar: some arabs lived in harmony with their jewish neighbors; others didn't. the british tried to stop jewish immigration because they were worried that arab peoples living there would suffer by being outnumbered, and the brits counted arabs as their allies. they tried to keep that the case after ww2, and if there were arab rulers who distanced themselves, the brits sought to replace them...as in iran and iraq. the brits did not want millions of jews to flow into palestine, and stopped it.

when the independence was granted in 1948,as the al jazeera piece said, the arabs suffered, and those who refused went to war. the war was ugly on both sides. both. the israelis ultimately won, and again i like the jazeera reportage on the unfairness of what followed.

if you wanted to say this state was formed like s africa, that's not true. but there's enough to blame the zionist settlers for without having to created invidious comparisons.

it's never pretty in cases like this. a million russians fled to israel, fleeing persecution. had they fled to america, which others also did, would we complain, or wouldn't we say refugees should have the right to go anywhere. i believe that strongly; my grandparents did the same.
the russians got housing in israeli settlements, at the price of palestinian homelands, making peace there increasingly distant. that's wrong.

the word "complex" is often bandied about so as to say there's something to both sides of the issue. this issue is complex. in the end israeli bombings of gaza were an atrocity, and netanyahu's govt should be penalized, pay the price. but the thousands of rockets hamas used to target israelis also victimized civilians. that too was wrong. were the wrongs equal? no. the paletinians deserve our sympathy and support.
but the whole story itself is complex.
ken


kenneth harrow

professor emeritus

dept of english

michigan state university

517 803-8839

har...@msu.edu

From: usaafric...@googlegroups.com <usaafric...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Gloria Emeagwali <gloria.e...@gmail.com>
Sent: Friday, May 21, 2021 11:17 AM
To: usaafric...@googlegroups.com <usaafric...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Israel and Palestine: Peace for all or peace for none
 

Emeagwali, Gloria (History)

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May 21, 2021, 11:30:26 PM5/21/21
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“apartheid, that is separation by practice and eventually law, was there in south africa for centuries, long before the british came, and when they did, it was over the opposition of the afrikaners who believed in enslaving africans, and fought a war against the british.”

It is always good to have input from you, Ken, but here is the historical reality.

The British made their appearance at the end of the 18th century in the 1790s about a century and a half after the 1652 arrival/invasion of the Dutch. Was apartheid in place during that initial era of Dutch  domination?Technically no. Military conquest was the major preoccupation of the 
Dutch, who fought four major wars against the Khoisan.
They also engaged in  large scale kidnapping of Khoisan women but the institutionalization of the system through a series of laws and regulations such as the Prohibition of Mixed Marriage Act - Act no. 55 of 1949 and the Population Regulation Act of 1950 was not a factor.

If we use your loose definition of apartheid we would have to call  all the colonial regimes,  apartheid states - whether British, French, Belgium, German, Spanish, Portuguese or Italian- or American, Canadian or Australian, for that matter.  I am good with that.

The  opposition between the British and the 
Dutch Afrikaners was primarily  over the imposition of British rule in the early 19th century. That was what triggered the Infamous  Great Trek northwards. The  issue over who would control the diamond and gold fields in the North in the Johannesburg area and environs, was also a major cause of opposition between the two.

The war fought in 1899 was also about 
secessionist tendencies and power and was certainly not aimed at protecting  Africans. In fact the British invaded and fought wars against the Xhosa, the Zulu and any African nation or kingdom that  tried to defend its territorial integrity  and  retake control of  land and resources.
That is the significance of the Anglo-Zulu war of 1879, for example.

Why didn’t the British include the Zulu or Xhosa or Pedi or Ndebele nation  in the 1910 union if they were the good guys?

Why did they give Cecil Rhodes and others a free hand to seize gold fields and  bar Africans from controlling the world’s greatest diamond fields of the era?

Why did the British encourage Jan Smuts to rule in the first place. He was a defeated general but the British facilitated
his emergence as the first PM of the Union of South Africa 1919-24. 


“if you wanted to say this state was formed like s africa, that's not true”

I said what I meant, namely, that the year 1948 saw the emergence of two  major violators of human rights. 




GE

Harrow, Kenneth

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May 22, 2021, 11:16:37 AM5/22/21
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the reality is apartheid was always there: the whites lived in white areas, the africans in theirs, the coloured in theirs. enforced by the same kinds of practices as kept whites and blacks apart in the u.,s. after the civil war. but more importantly, absolutely, there was not a single colonial state at all that did not impose segregation and differential laws on the population. that was at the heart of colonialism, and the southern african model was real in the portuguese colonies just as it was in south africa. i was surprised when i first learn that s africa was not an exception. but it was in effect a system of segregation, more formalized after 1948, but effectively the same.
gloria your recitation of history was meant to show the horrors of the brits, with which i agree. they took over the economic reins and governance. but they also abolished slavery and fought the afrikaners who tried to revolt, and keep their slave owning ways.
the brits had a more liberal faction; i am not aware if the afrikaners did, i never heard of it. the brits included anti apartheid activists who were famous, we all know of them. the afrikaners? dunno of them.
the afrikaners were at the heart of the racism; the brits more typical colonial racist. that's my impression of their cultural difference.

i once argued with an austalian woman of british descent about this reality in kenya; she was convinced the brits were good, etc. nonsense. they were monsters in kenya, for reasons i won't bother enumerating...just read a little ngugi to get a nice feel for the harshness and destructiveness to kikuyus. as for the brits in nigeria, i would love to hear from the nigerian historians on this listserv who can expatiate better than i on how they imposed their race restrictions and economic rules on the colonized people. how was lagos island organized? here's what a cursory look gave: "The historical core of the town, Lagos Island, developed from the main sub-communities who lived in relatively distinct districts. The European community represented a small group (300 people by 1901). This community established the physical foundations of the city, which consisted of warehouses and government buildings built along the Marina and around the racecourse."
the wealth of all colonial states was similarly organized in apartheid fashion. everywhere. south africa was no different.
ken

kenneth harrow

professor emeritus

dept of english

michigan state university

517 803-8839

har...@msu.edu

From: Emeagwali, Gloria (History) <emea...@ccsu.edu>
Sent: Friday, May 21, 2021 10:39 PM
To: Harrow, Kenneth <har...@msu.edu>; usaafric...@googlegroups.com <usaafric...@googlegroups.com>

Emeagwali, Gloria (History)

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May 22, 2021, 3:24:31 PM5/22/21
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The Brits did not abolish slavery just like that.
After the Haitian revolution and a series of 
other revolts throughout the region the Brits 
realized that the power of resistance was 
formidable and that multiple  Haitis  would 
emerge in the future. Add to that fear factor the technological breakthrough in efficient machinery. 

Who wiped out most of the Indigenous
 people in  Australia, NewZealand, the 
Americas etc

Do we know how many millions the British 
killed in their Wars of invasion and occupation
with the Gatling gun , the dumdum bullets and
Infected small pox blankets?

7 million?  8 million?

In one of my interviews in South Africa in 2002,
I asked the interviewee a straight question.

Between the Afrikaners and the British who 
do you prefer?

“The Afrikaners,” he replied.


Professor Gloria Emeagwali
Prof. of History/African Studies, CCSU
africahistory.net; vimeo.com/ gloriaemeagwali
Recipient of the 2014 Distinguished Research
Excellence Award, Univ. of Texas at Austin;
2019 Distinguished Africanist Award
New York African Studies Association

From: Harrow, Kenneth <har...@msu.edu>
Sent: Saturday, May 22, 2021 9:47 AM
To: Emeagwali, Gloria (History) <emea...@ccsu.edu>; usaafric...@googlegroups.com <usaafric...@googlegroups.com>

Emeagwali, Gloria (History)

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May 22, 2021, 3:29:55 PM5/22/21
to Harrow, Kenneth, usa
Correction 

7 million may be an estimate for one region alone.
We may be talking about upwards of 100 million.  





Professor Gloria Emeagwali
Prof. of History/African Studies, CCSU
africahistory.net; vimeo.com/ gloriaemeagwali
Recipient of the 2014 Distinguished Research
Excellence Award, Univ. of Texas at Austin;
2019 Distinguished Africanist Award
New York African Studies Association
From: Harrow, Kenneth <har...@msu.edu>
Sent: Saturday, May 22, 2021 9:47 AM

Emeagwali, Gloria (History)

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May 23, 2021, 7:33:21 AM5/23/21
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I just spotted some grammatical errors 
in my previous post. Sorry about that.

Well here is a piece that tackles 
some of the issues raised. 
Raoul Peck’s,  “Exterminate All the Brutes “
is of special relevance.

pm-section/78-78/69429-bidens-special-
challenge-the-deadly-white-supremacy-doctriine


Gloria  Emeagwali 
Vimeo.com/gloriaemeagwali




Professor Gloria Emeagwali
Prof. of History/African Studies, CCSU
africahistory.net; vimeo.com/ gloriaemeagwali
Recipient of the 2014 Distinguished Research
Excellence Award, Univ. of Texas at Austin;
2019 Distinguished Africanist Award
New York African Studies Association

From: Harrow, Kenneth <har...@msu.edu>
Sent: Saturday, May 22, 2021 4:23 PM

To: Emeagwali, Gloria (History) <emea...@ccsu.edu>
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Israel and Palestine: Peace for all or peace for none

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not surprising. i think it makes my point....

kenneth harrow

professor emeritus

dept of english

michigan state university

517 803-8839

har...@msu.edu

From: Emeagwali, Gloria (History) <emea...@ccsu.edu>
Sent: Saturday, May 22, 2021 3:45 PM
To: Harrow, Kenneth <har...@msu.edu>

Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Israel and Palestine: Peace for all or peace for none
 
For the record,  this guy was 100 percent
 Xhosa and had no cultural affiliation with
the  Khoisan  descendants (so-called Colored).

I asked him why he preferred the 
Boers. He looked me in the eye and 
said, with total conviction, that the Afrikaners
 are racist but you know exactly where 
you stand with them.



Professor Gloria Emeagwali
Prof. of History/African Studies, CCSU
africahistory.net; vimeo.com/ gloriaemeagwali
Recipient of the 2014 Distinguished Research
Excellence Award, Univ. of Texas at Austin;
2019 Distinguished Africanist Award
New York African Studies Association
From: Harrow, Kenneth <har...@msu.edu>
Sent: Saturday, May 22, 2021 3:28 PM

To: Emeagwali, Gloria (History) <emea...@ccsu.edu>
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Israel and Palestine: Peace for all or peace for none

Please be cautious: **External Email**

gloria, i was talking about afrikaners, the slave owners and original conquerors, in the past. the british abolitionist movement was real. but i imagine your interlocutor was culturally more at home with afrikaners, who were probably less arrogant than the brits by the time you interviewed them. the "coloured" population spoke afrikaans.
i am not interested in defending the british colonialists; but i would have to be convinced that they were worse than the afrikaners. in 1948 the afrikaners came to power with their Nationalist party. They were pro-Nazi, and it was they who put in place the legal mechanisms of Apartheid; they who ruled while the ANC revolted against them.
how they stand in the present vis a vis racism, anglos vs afrikaners, i don't know.
ken

kenneth harrow

professor emeritus

dept of english

michigan state university

517 803-8839

har...@msu.edu

From: Emeagwali, Gloria (History) <emea...@ccsu.edu>
Sent: Saturday, May 22, 2021 3:20 PM

Harrow, Kenneth

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May 23, 2021, 12:52:09 PM5/23/21
to usa
i love most of the work of raoul peck--for many years.
the latest film gloria referenced, exterminate all the brutes, sounds like something i'd very much like to see. looks as though it is an hbo film, so we'd have to subscribe to see it?
ken

kenneth harrow

professor emeritus

dept of english

michigan state university

517 803-8839

har...@msu.edu

From: usaafric...@googlegroups.com <usaafric...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Emeagwali, Gloria (History) <emea...@ccsu.edu>
Sent: Sunday, May 23, 2021 12:15 AM
To: usa <usaafric...@googlegroups.com>

Joseph Bangura

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May 23, 2021, 4:43:30 PM5/23/21
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I meant to say “Has there ever been a Palestinian State in the history of what is now referred to as the Middle East?” 

Apologies for the error.


Sent from my iPhone

Harrow, Kenneth

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May 23, 2021, 6:18:21 PM5/23/21
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this part of this history i find more pertinent to your question, joseph: how did migration function in the region, and how do we evaluate this question:
"

In the 1860s, the Ottoman military was able to restore order east of Jordan by halting tribal conflicts and Bedouin raids. This invited migration to the east, notably the Salt area, from various populations in Lebanon, Syria and Palestine to take advantage of new lands. This influx amounted to some 12,000 over the period from 1880 to just before the First World War, while the Bedouin population east of Jordan increased to 56,000.[494] However, with the creation of the Transjordanian emirate in 1921–22, the hamlet of Amman, which had been recently resettled by Circassians, attracted most of the new immigrants from Palestine, and many of those that had previously moved to Salt.[495]

In the reorganisation of 1873, which established the administrative boundaries that remained in place until 1914, Palestine was split between three major administrative units. ...

The Ottomans regarded "Filistin" as an abstract term referring to the "Holy Land", and not one consistently applied to a clearly defined area.[498] Among the educated Arab public, Filastin was a common concept, referring either to the whole of Palestine or to the Jerusalem sanjak alone[499] or just to the area around Ramle.[500] The publication of the daily paper Falastin (Palestine) from 1911 was one example of the increasing currency of this concept.[501]

Tel Aviv was founded on land purchased from Bedouins north of Jaffa. This is the 1909 drawing of lots for the distribution of construction plots.

The rise of Zionism, the national movement of the Jewish people started in Europe in the 19th century seeking to recreate a Jewish state in Palestine, and return the original homeland of the Jewish people. The end of the 19th century saw the beginning of Zionist immigration.[citation needed] The "First Aliyah" was the first modern widespread wave of aliyah. Jews who migrated to Palestine in this wave came mostly from Eastern Europe and from Yemen. This wave of aliyah began in 1881–82 and lasted until 1903,[502] bringing an estimated 25,000[503]–35,000[504] Jews to Erez Israel. The First Aliyah laid the cornerstone for Jewish settlement in Israel and created several settlements such as Rishon LeZion, Rosh Pinna, Zikhron Ya'akov and Gedera.[citation needed]

In 1891, a group of Jerusalem notables sent a petition to the central Ottoman government in Istanbul calling for the cessation of Jewish immigration, and land sales to Jews.[505][506]

The "Second Aliyah" took place between 1904 and 1914, during which approximately 40,000 Jews immigrated, mostly from Russia and Poland,[507] and some from Yemen. The Second Aliyah immigrants were both primarily idealists, inspired by the revolutionary ideals then sweeping the Russian Empire who sought to create a communal agricultural settlement system in Palestine. They thus founded the kibbutz movement. "
The history of Palestine is the study of the past in the region of Palestine, defined as the territory between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River (where Israel and Palestine are today). Strategically situated between three continents, Palestine has a tumultuous history as a crossroads for religion, culture, commerce, and politics.

this wraps up the pertinent history:

During the First World War the Ottomans sided with the German Empire and the Central Powers. As a result, they were driven from much of the region by the British Empire during the dissolution phase of the Ottoman Empire.[citation needed]

Under the secret Sykes–Picot Agreement of 1916, it was envisioned that most of Palestine, when freed from Ottoman control, would become an international zone not under direct French or British colonial control. Shortly thereafter, British foreign minister Arthur Balfour issued the Balfour Declaration, which promised to establish a "Jewish national home" in Palestine,[508] but appeared to contradict the 1915–16 Hussein-McMahon Correspondence, which contained an undertaking to form a united Arab state in exchange for the Great Arab Revolt against the Ottoman Empire in World War I. McMahon's promises could have been seen by Arab nationalists as a pledge of immediate Arab independence, an undertaking violated by the region's subsequent partition into British and French League of Nations mandates under the secret Sykes-Picot Agreement of May 1916, which became the real cornerstone of the geopolitics structuring the entire region. The Balfour Declaration, likewise, was seen by Jewish nationalists as the cornerstone of a future Jewish homeland.

The British-led Egyptian Expeditionary Force, commanded by Edmund Allenby, captured Jerusalem on 9 December 1917 and occupied the whole of the Levant following the defeat of Turkish forces in Palestine at the Battle of Megiddo in September 1918 and the capitulation of Turkey on 31 October.[509][510]



kenneth harrow

professor emeritus

dept of english

michigan state university

517 803-8839

har...@msu.edu

From: usaafric...@googlegroups.com <usaafric...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Joseph Bangura <Joseph....@kzoo.edu>
Sent: Sunday, May 23, 2021 3:07 PM

Harrow, Kenneth

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May 23, 2021, 6:18:27 PM5/23/21
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under the ottoman empire the territory in question was called palestine: "The Ottomans maintained the administrative and political organisation that the Mamluks left in Palestine. Greater Syria became an eyalet (province) ruled from Damascus, while the Palestine region within it was divided into the five sanjaks (provincial districts, also called liwa′ in Arabic) of Safad, Nablus, Jerusalem, Lajjun and Gaza.[402][403] The sanjaks were further subdivided into subdistricts called nawahi (sing. nahiya).[401] "

the same is true of the british. the mandated territory they ruled after world war one was called palestine.
the people who lived there were palestinian arabs. there were druze, bedouins and jews and no doubt lots of other small groups. but the arabs who lived in palestine  lived in a land to which they were indigenous.

no one disputes that.
here's more on that point from the wikipedia site on the history of palestine:
The name "Palestine" was no longer used as the official name of an administrative unit under the Ottomans because they typically named provinces after their capitals. Nonetheless, the old name remained in popular and semi-official use,

here's still more: "In common usage from 1840 onward, "Palestine" was used either to describe the consular jurisdictions of the Western powers[486] or for a region that extended in the north–south direction typically from Rafah (south-east of Gaza) to the Litani River (now in Lebanon). The western boundary was the sea, and the eastern boundary was the poorly defined place where the Syrian desert began. In various European sources, the eastern boundary was placed anywhere from the Jordan River to slightly east of Amman. The Negev Desert was not included.[487]"

this too!! 'The Muslim, Christian, and Jewish communities of Palestine were allowed to exercise jurisdiction over their own members according to charters granted to them. For centuries the Jews and Christians had enjoyed a large degree of communal autonomy in matters of worship, jurisdiction over personal status, taxes, and in managing their schools and charitable institutions."

anyway there's the picture, till the 20th c and british control
ken


kenneth harrow

professor emeritus

dept of english

michigan state university

517 803-8839

har...@msu.edu

From: usaafric...@googlegroups.com <usaafric...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Joseph Bangura <Joseph....@kzoo.edu>
Sent: Sunday, May 23, 2021 3:07 PM

Emeagwali, Gloria (History)

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May 23, 2021, 9:21:01 PM5/23/21
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My answer to this great question is that we 
have to go back to antiquity to find out
 who exactly were the ancestors of  today’s
 Palestinians.Did these ancestors have a state- 
in the form of a city state, a kingdom or an 
empire? Where exactly was it located?

The battle over  settlement in the area is hotly
contested, however.

archaeologists-both-lay-claim-to-heritage.

Ben-Sasson, in, A History of the Jewish People,
contends that the relationship between
the Philistines and the Israelites was tangled in
antiquity and that both groups were migrants 
into Canaan. Gaza, Ashkelon and Ashdod were 
among the Philistine towns. By the mid eleventh
century, BC, the Philistines had
a confederacy of five city states, he argues
 (BenSasson, 87).




Professor Gloria Emeagwali
Prof. of History/African Studies, CCSU
africahistory.net; vimeo.com/ gloriaemeagwali
Recipient of the 2014 Distinguished Research
Excellence Award, Univ. of Texas at Austin;
2019 Distinguished Africanist Award
New York African Studies Association

From: usaafric...@googlegroups.com <usaafric...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Joseph Bangura <Joseph....@kzoo.edu>
Sent: Sunday, May 23, 2021 3:07 PM
To: usaafric...@googlegroups.com <usaafric...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Israel and Palestine: Peace for all or peace for none
 

Please be cautious: **External Email**

Harrow, Kenneth

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May 23, 2021, 9:47:33 PM5/23/21
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i guess i have to say i oppose the position that whoever was there first is the rightful owner of the land--forever and forever and forever....
maybe that is not what is being argued, though?

ken

kenneth harrow

professor emeritus

dept of english

michigan state university

517 803-8839

har...@msu.edu

From: usaafric...@googlegroups.com <usaafric...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Emeagwali, Gloria (History) <emea...@ccsu.edu>
Sent: Sunday, May 23, 2021 8:04 PM
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Gloria Emeagwali

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May 24, 2021, 3:27:34 AM5/24/21
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Joseph,
The error was mine not yours.

GE

On May 23, 2021, at 16:43, Joseph Bangura <Joseph....@kzoo.edu> wrote:

 I meant to say “Has there ever been a Palestinian State in the history of what is now referred to as the Middle East?” 

Emeagwali, Gloria (History)

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May 24, 2021, 3:28:21 AM5/24/21
to Harrow, Kenneth, usaafric...@googlegroups.com
Well if we go by that position of prior
occupation, neither the 
Israelites nor the Philistines would qualify.

Apparently the both parties met people
there. I don’t know who they were.
I would have to go back to my Ben-Sasson
text and check.

I don’t recognize Wikipedia as a scholarly 
reference.


Professor Gloria Emeagwali
Prof. of History/African Studies, CCSU
africahistory.net; vimeo.com/ gloriaemeagwali
Recipient of the 2014 Distinguished Research
Excellence Award, Univ. of Texas at Austin;
2019 Distinguished Africanist Award
New York African Studies Association

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Sent: Sunday, May 23, 2021 9:44 PM

OLAYINKA AGBETUYI

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Ben- Sasson is right.  The philistines were the civilization that preceded the settlements of the Israelites in Canaan and there are artifacts celebrating the glories of the civilization of the philistines.

The Israelites came to Canaan when the philistines civilization was on the decline ( just as the Greeks and Romans did in Egypt) and what was celebrated in the story of David and Goliath was the usual israelite teleological parodic narrative through which the Canaanites were dispossed by yet another conqueror nation replacing an erstwhile conquering nation ( the philistines).  The phased annexation by Israel was capped in the allegory of the defeat of prophets of Baal by the prophets of Yahweh signifying the displacement of the originary polytheistic ethos in Canaan by monotheism not through persuasion but by force of arms, a parallel and continuum  which Christopher Okigbo drew in his narrative of the forcible dispossession of the worship of Idoto in Eastern Nigeria by British colonialists (and replacement with Christianity) in Labyrinths.

Historians are however  emphatic in stating that the philistines are NOT  the same as today's palestinians.  Today's palestinians they maintain emerged from series of migrations into the area over time, centuries after the philistines with a large contingent from Syria.


OAA



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-------- Original message --------
From: "Emeagwali, Gloria (History)" <emea...@ccsu.edu>
Date: 24/05/2021 02:32 (GMT+00:00)
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Israel and Palestine: Peace for allor peace for none

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My answer to this great question is that we 
have to go back to antiquity to find out
 who exactly were the ancestors of  today’s
 Palestinians.Did these ancestors have a state- 
in the form of a city state, a kingdom or an 
empire? Where exactly was it located?

The battle over  settlement in the area is hotly
contested, however.

archaeologists-both-lay-claim-to-heritage.

Ben-Sasson, in, A History of the Jewish People,
contends that the relationship between
the Philistines and the Israelites was tangled in
antiquity and that both groups were migrants 
into Canaan. Gaza, Ashkelon and Ashdod were 
among the Philistine towns. By the mid eleventh
century, BC, the Philistines had
a confederacy of five city states, he argues
 (BenSasson, 87).




Professor Gloria Emeagwali
Prof. of History/African Studies, CCSU
africahistory.net; vimeo.com/ gloriaemeagwali
Recipient of the 2014 Distinguished Research
Excellence Award, Univ. of Texas at Austin;
2019 Distinguished Africanist Award
New York African Studies Association

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Harrow, Kenneth

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May 24, 2021, 10:39:43 AM5/24/21
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this wondwerful wikipedia entry gives a different picture, OAA, concerning polytheism and monotheism. the latter came latter, probably around when it was being accepted elsewhere in the middle east.
even in the jewish bible the idea of other gods existing is reiterated over and over in warnings not to worship them; not to mention that god has many different names, indicated an earlier period of many gods who were ultimately joined into one.

rushdie later plays on this notion of earlier worship of multiple goddess alongside allah (i'm switching subject here slightly), with the claim that the verses indicating this initially by muhammed were later revised and excised, whence the title "Satanic Verses."

it is interesting to me to ask when the greeks became, more or less monotheistic, which was around that same period 7-6th centuries b.c.e.



kenneth harrow

professor emeritus

dept of english

michigan state university

517 803-8839

har...@msu.edu

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Subject: RE: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Israel and Palestine: Peace for allor peace for none
 

Emeagwali, Gloria (History)

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May 24, 2021, 12:29:10 PM5/24/21
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Happy for the view of another
Colleague.

The questions to be tangled with include the following:

1. Where did the Israelites come from?
2. Who did they meet in Canaan?
3. Who were the Indigenous occupants?
4. Are the Philistines and Palestinians related?
    If not, who are the direct ancestors of the
    Palestinians? 
5. What do Palestinian archeologists and 
     historians  say about their origins?
5. Since  Gods are not supposed to discriminate,
    where is the Palestinian promised land?

The Ancient Players in Canaan:

Foreign Intruders
The Kingdom of Mitanni
The Hittites
The Egyptians (18th and 19th dynasties)
The Assyrians 
The Philistines
The Israelites 
The Hurrians
Indigenous Canaanites


Now I disagree with OA’s definitive statement 
that the Philistines and Palestinians  were unrelated. Maybe so maybe not. Lots of theories are still out there.  Some have even posited that the Indigenous Canaanites were ancestors of today’s Palestinians. One theory claims  that the
Israelites engaged  in conquest, coming initially
 from the land between the two rivers, namely,
 ancient Iraq. The title of Ben-Sassons
second chapter is:    “Canaan- Before and During the Israelite Conquest.”

 The debate continues.



Professor Gloria Emeagwali
Prof. of History/African Studies, CCSU
africahistory.net; vimeo.com/ gloriaemeagwali
Recipient of the 2014 Distinguished Research
Excellence Award, Univ. of Texas at Austin;
2019 Distinguished Africanist Award
New York African Studies Association
Subject: RE: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Israel and Palestine: Peace for allor peace for none
 

Emeagwali, Gloria (History)

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May 24, 2021, 12:29:30 PM5/24/21
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Who is the author of the Wikipedia article? The content changes per minute. What makes the entry wonderful?

I always appreciate the illustrations and in some cases the Bibliography but many of the articles are self serving, group coordinated and often
suspect.

The first statement I utter to my students  in my first week  of Class is:

 “Hello Students. Welcome.
I do not accept Wikipedia as a reference.”


Professor Gloria Emeagwali
Prof. of History/African Studies, CCSU
africahistory.net; vimeo.com/ gloriaemeagwali
Recipient of the 2014 Distinguished Research
Excellence Award, Univ. of Texas at Austin;
2019 Distinguished Africanist Award
New York African Studies Association

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Oluwatoyin Adepoju

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May 24, 2021, 2:21:16 PM5/24/21
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We need a. more creative approach to Wikipedia.

It is the richest source of organised knowledge on Earth and perhaps in history.

If there is any other such knowledge source I would like  to know of it.

Thanks

Toyin

Toyin

Emeagwali, Gloria (History)

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May 24, 2021, 4:58:42 PM5/24/21
to Oluwatoyin Adepoju, usaafricadialogue
We have had this discussion before, Toyin.
All that glitters is not gold.

If this is the best source on earth that you have come across, well  .........................

I deleted the rest of the sentence.


Professor Gloria Emeagwali
Prof. of History/African Studies, CCSU
africahistory.net; vimeo.com/ gloriaemeagwali
Recipient of the 2014 Distinguished Research
Excellence Award, Univ. of Texas at Austin;
2019 Distinguished Africanist Award
New York African Studies Association

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Harrow, Kenneth

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May 24, 2021, 4:59:03 PM5/24/21
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i've seen some weak moments in wikipedia, but on the whole it is absolutely astonishing. unbelievable. want to know something, google it and wiki pops up.
gloria's warnings are needed; if i were vetting a student's claim, wiki would be either weak or unacceptable. but it has become a relatively reliable source of knowledge on EVERYTHING, which amazes me.
that last little article i posted--about which i know almost nothing--had something like 500 references or footnotes. you can follow that line through, if you are interested and knowledgeable, to get a sense on how well substantiated the claims are. students can track those sources, and then use them. that makes the claims more credible.

i was told there are certain entries that "interested parties," like religious nuts, try to dominate. we need some caution after all. but we can also compare what they say, and try to be discriminating.
as i said, i've worked on science issues for a couple of years now. want to know what a wave function is? wiki it, it is there. and it is very very solid.
you can't publish with wiki as a reference; you can use it, however, to learn and as a lead in to real source material.
ken

kenneth harrow

professor emeritus

dept of english

michigan state university

517 803-8839

har...@msu.edu

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Cornelius Hamelberg

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May 24, 2021, 5:53:56 PM5/24/21
to USA Africa Dialogue Series

Gloria in Excelsis Alpha & Omega,

What ‘s your candid opinion of the Encyclopaedia Britannica and the Encyclopaedia Judaica (check the entry about Rabbi Hamelberg in the older edition)

There all kinds of historically (and mentally) unhinged ideas floating around, starting with the central idea that we all descended from “Adam & Eve” Some of our 21st century commentators continue to conflate “ Israelites” with Israelis, and Palestinians with the Biblical Philistines.

Then there’s all the chaff about “The Abrahamic religions”

It should be interesting to lean back and enjoy the polemicists and some of the fellow ignoramuses wading into the murky waters of, not antiquity precisely. Some learned Middle Easterner told me that we should abandon the romantic notion adopted from the story of David and Goliath the Philistine - that today’s so called Palestinians are descended from Goliath’s people – on the contrary, he insists that the Palestinians descended from the Greeks - on the surface at least, another palpably absurd notion. Mind you, when the spies ( the original MOSSAD) returned from their reconnoitring of the Promised Land, the ill report that they brought back to Moses was that the land was populated by giants and that the Israelites by comparison were like mere “grasshoppers” and had therefore lost all hope of ever “conquering” them – and yet we read in the book of Samuel that David brought back the foreskins of 100 Philistines – no easy feat for the little grasshopper shepherd boy to circumcise 100 Nephilim...

Waxing political, some Palestine Arabs are confident with their assertion that “Jesus was a Palestinian” – a Polish Roman Catholic also told me recently, very angrily, that “Jesus was not a Jew”. Compromise can probably be achieved when they discuss the Muslim claim that Moses and “all the Hebrew Prophets were Prophets of Islam”

I was at the Book presentation event when Shlomo Sand came to Stockholm to present his freshly minted book “The Invention of The Jewish People “(I didn’t like him terribly. I wanted to tell him a thing or two, but unfortunately there was someone in the audience who I was sure was going to tell me to shut up and sit down….

Emeagwali, Gloria (History)

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May 24, 2021, 6:07:55 PM5/24/21
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“You can’t publish with wiki as a reference; 
 You can use it ........as a lead into real source material.”
Harrow

I totally agree. That last sentence summarizes 
it best.


Gloria Emeagwali 
 Vimeo.com/gloriaemeagwali



Professor Gloria Emeagwali
Prof. of History/African Studies, CCSU
africahistory.net; vimeo.com/ gloriaemeagwali
Recipient of the 2014 Distinguished Research
Excellence Award, Univ. of Texas at Austin;
2019 Distinguished Africanist Award
New York African Studies Association

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Farooq A. Kperogi

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May 25, 2021, 5:12:44 AM5/25/21
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Wikipedia has evolved dramatically since its founding. Several, perhaps most, of its (scholarly) articles are written by experts, and many are actually way better and more current than traditional encyclopedia articles. 

A recent study, for instance, found almost as many inaccuracies on Encyclopedia Britannica as on Wikipedia, indicating that peer review or lack thereof isn't always a reliable predictor of quality control.

Again,  a 2014 study found that Wikipedia was "the most trusted internet source" for information on ebola. 

Epidemiologists also realized that more people searched information about the coronavirus on Wikipedia than on any site, including CDC's website, so they invested intellectual and scholarly resources to making sure that the Wikipedia entries on it are accurate. This is true of many subject matters. 

 Plus, Wikipedia articles are sometimes ranked,  and several well-done articles are "protected" or "semi-protected," which means they're "locked" or "partially locked" to save them from vandalism and pointless, unproductive "edit wars."

Wikipedia's main guiding principles are "verifiability" and "neutral point of view." Entries that don't meet these criteria are often promptly deleted and edits that violate them are also usually promptly reversed.

Wikipedia isn't perfect by any means, but it's far and away the single greatest readily available epistemic vault in the world, and it's unhelpful to hang on to old memories of its earliest incarnation and dismiss it as unworthy of a scholar's attention. 

The idea that Wikipedia articles are unreliable because they are editable by anyone and shouldn't be cited to support an argument is a frozen, unevolved understanding of this unexampled storehouse of knowledge. Many people have transcended this.

I also think supercilious attitudes to Wikipedia sources are informed by a sort of instinctive but outmoded academic elitism that chafes at Wikipedia's epistemic democracy, which puts knowledge at the fingertips of the "uninitiated" that the "initiated" took years to acquire in the traditional fashion. 

I think it's more productive to contest the accuracy of a Wikipedia article than to facilely dismiss it without engaging with it just because of its provenance. 

Farooq 
Twitter: @farooqkperogi
Blog: www.farooqkperogi.com


Sent from my phone. Please forgive typos and omissions.

Oluwatoyin Adepoju

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May 25, 2021, 5:13:14 AM5/25/21
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I wonder if it's honest to learn from Wikipedia and not use it as a reference.

How are academic books necessarily better than an encyclopedia and Wikipedia specifically?

To what degree is knowledge not interest, bias or perspectively driven?

As always, the key is an analytical approach to all knowledge, from everywhere.

Toyin

Apologies for the error.
To post to this group, send an email to USAAfricaDi

Chidi Anthony Opara, FIIM

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May 25, 2021, 5:13:26 AM5/25/21
to USA African Dialogue Series, Emeagwali, Gloria (History)
"The first statement I utter to my students  in my first week  of Class is:

 “Hello Students. Welcome.
I do not accept Wikipedia as a reference"-Professor Gloria Emeagwali.


Really?

-CAO.

Emeagwali, Gloria (History)

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May 25, 2021, 5:14:04 AM5/25/21
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I was invited to give a paper at the  Inaugural Conference of the Stevanovich Conference on Knowledge Formation
in 2017.  One of my co-participants gave this presentation on Wikipedia.
My presentation on a different topic is also there but that is for another day.

The presenter's  views on  wikipedia's gender bias,simplistic assumptions, inherent prejudices, weird categories, inaccuracies  etc
with respect to featured articles  should be noted.  
Lecture—“The Wikipedia Slant”DIANA STRASSMANN, Director, Program on Poverty, Justice, and Human Capabilities; Founding Editor of Feminist Economics; Carolyn ...





 


Professor Gloria Emeagwali
Prof. of History/African Studies, CCSU
africahistory.net; vimeo.com/ gloriaemeagwali
Recipient of the 2014 Distinguished Research
Excellence Award, Univ. of Texas at Austin;
2019 Distinguished Africanist Award
New York African Studies Association

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Oluwatoyin Adepoju

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May 25, 2021, 6:03:05 AM5/25/21
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Very fine summation from Farooq...but the manner of characterising those who think differently from the point of view he advances, a view on Wikipedia which I also share is.....hmmmm....

Anyway, Farooq's summation delineates great changes in the world of learning.

Thanks

Toyin

Thanks

Toyin



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Cornelius Hamelberg

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May 25, 2021, 8:29:30 AM5/25/21
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 There’s all these critiques and reviews of Wikipedia

They’re even soliciting donations these days, so that they can continue their good works. You want to find out about John the Baptiser or Alexander Pope or Karl Popper, do a google and most likely the first thing that’ll come up is something by Wikipedia. As the good teachers say, at least that could serve as an introduction to the subject.

Not so much in the sciences but in the more controversial humanities, the main weakness of Wikipedia as a rival to The Omniscient is that there are many areas in which the info they give is so scanty/inadequate and in some cases the info that they provide can even be faulty and misleading. Here’s an example _Sir Henry Lightfoot Boston. Surely, they could do much better than that. They could provide us with some details of his education for example (First class, law degree, London)

The snag about e.g. some national encyclopedias is that there is always more or less some degree of chest-beating, whether it’s about Sir Isaac Newton or the Second World War, subtle elements best described as “propaganda “whether it’s the Encyclopedia Britannica which was and in this digital age still is yours truly’s most valuable source - in most cases more objective and more truthful than the so called gold standard of truth, the so called “Gospel truths” enshrined in the mostly hagiographic New Testament at least with regard to miracles, divine interventions, unscientific conjectures. The propaganda element is less true of the Swedish National Encyclopedia, but of course not the subtle chest-beating that rimes with national pride. Goodness knows what the German National Encyclopedia could be like.

Of course, some subtle chest beating, national pride, propaganda and inevitably from a purely Islamic point of view, what a faith-driven Muslim would regard as elements of great bias with regard to what the Encyclopedia Judaica (all editions) in the name of objectivity and truth has to say about Islam’s most beloved prophet, just looka here: Encyclopedia Judaica : Mohammed

As the bard crows in Do Right To Me Baby,

“Don't put my faith in nobody, not even a scientist ”

Don’t put my faith in anybody, not even the editors of the Bible or the Encyclopedia Judaica




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Emeagwali, Gloria (History)

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May 25, 2021, 8:29:42 AM5/25/21
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“Wikipedia has evolved dramatically since its founding. Several, perhaps most, of its (scholarly) articles are written by experts, and many are actually way better and more current than traditional encyclopedia articles. “

Ok. Can you please provide the names of some of
these experts and their fields of specialization?

Thank you.

Gloria


Professor Gloria Emeagwali
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africahistory.net; vimeo.com/ gloriaemeagwali
Recipient of the 2014 Distinguished Research
Excellence Award, Univ. of Texas at Austin;
2019 Distinguished Africanist Award
New York African Studies Association
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Oluwatoyin Adepoju

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May 25, 2021, 8:42:39 AM5/25/21
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Most Wikipedia articles fit that description, I think.

The Hegel and Leibniz essays, to give two examples I consulted recently, are quite good, particularly for a non-expert such as myself who can compare them with the stanford Encyclopedia and Britannica articles which are written by named experts.

Thanks

Toyin

Oluwatoyin Adepoju

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May 25, 2021, 8:42:45 AM5/25/21
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It's the quality of the Wikipedia article, the character of it's argument,  the scope of it's coverage of the subject and the strength of it's bibliography, that establishes it's expertise, particularly when these qualities can be compared with those of other encyclopedias written by named experts.

With those qualities, the name of the Wikipedia article authors do not need to be known.

Thanks

Toyin

Emeagwali, Gloria (History)

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May 25, 2021, 5:23:15 PM5/25/21
to Oluwatoyin Adepoju, usaafricadialogue
You may agree with me that if you claim that
 something is written by experts, in the academic
field, you should be able to name them. 
The edits can be done by anyone and such
editors may certainly not be experts. What is
worst is that the information changes by the
hour so that the quote that you had in mind at
9.00 am Eastern Time may not be there at
midnight.

If the presentation by Diana Strassmann at the
University of Chicago conference, 
earlier mentioned, does not encourage 
reflection on how the information on
Wikipedia is acquired and its weaknesses,
well who am I to convince you?

I know of no historian in my  History Department 
who would accept Wikipedia as a scholarly source.
No doctoral candidate would be taken seriously 
with a Wikipedia quote, although as I said from 
the start,  the bibliographies  and illustrations
 are useful. In the end I really like Harrow’s 
previous statement on the issue. You can use
 wiki “as a lead into real source material.” 

But if you think that it is the best thing on 
earth since the invention of paper by the
 Egyptians and the Chinese, then go for it!



Professor Gloria Emeagwali
Prof. of History/African Studies, CCSU
africahistory.net; vimeo.com/ gloriaemeagwali
Recipient of the 2014 Distinguished Research
Excellence Award, Univ. of Texas at Austin;
2019 Distinguished Africanist Award
New York African Studies Association

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Farooq A. Kperogi

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May 25, 2021, 5:23:50 PM5/25/21
to Emeagwali, Gloria (History), USAAfrica Dialogue
Wikipedia is powered by the intelligence of the crowd and of experts. Every Wikipedia article has an edit history. Check it out for articles you're curious about. You will not only find the identities (often just handles) of the authors there, but the record of the  discursive contestations that took place before the articles were published. 

Nonetheless, Wikipedia is an an entirely different model from our habitual, traditional forms of knowledge dissemination. It's an intentional repudiation of academic elitism. Author name recognition and prestige of institutional affiliation are immaterial there.

What's more important than the identities of the authors is the quality of the articles. They're not all great (just like not all peer-reviewed journal articles or books are great), but several are. I'm more interested in an engagement with the content of Wikipedia articles than an obsession with the identities of the authors of the articles. 

Farooq 

Twitter: @farooqkperogi
Blog: www.farooqkperogi.com


Sent from my phone. Please forgive typos and omissions.

Cornelius Hamelberg

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May 25, 2021, 5:25:08 PM5/25/21
to usaafric...@googlegroups.com, Farooq A. Kperogi

With immense reservations and common-sense scepticism let’s take a closer look into Kperogi’s effusive enthusiasm here (which is understandable since Wikipedia allows some people to praise themselves to the high heavens in their biographical entries about themselves in Wikipedia).

But really,

“A recent study, for instance, found almost as many inaccuracies on Encyclopedia Britannica as on Wikipedia...”? Which recent study? One conducted by wiki? A subsidiary? Wikileaks?

“ ...a 2014 study found that Wikipedia was "the most trusted internet source" for information on ebola. “ Really? And which study was that? “Most trusted” by who?

Well, here’s Wikipedia’s latest word on HIV/AIDS

This evening I asked Baba Kadiri to intervene , but for the time being he’s holding his fire….



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Pamela Smith

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May 25, 2021, 6:27:43 PM5/25/21
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AMEN, GLORIA!

 

Some of the revisions change at the speed of lightening!

Like Ken, My-rule-of-thumb to students in my English Comp/Lit courses is simply: “Wiki for starters, o.k./maybe, but that submitted biblio better SHOW me how you NAVIGATED the forest of ideas that produced the so-called FINAL submission I am expected to READ and EVALUATE.

 

From: usaafric...@googlegroups.com <usaafric...@googlegroups.com> On Behalf Of Emeagwali, Gloria (History)
Sent: Tuesday, May 25, 2021 9:12 AM
To: Oluwatoyin Adepoju <ovde...@gmail.com>; usaafricadialogue <usaafric...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Israel and Palestine: Peace for allor peace for none

 

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Toyin Falola

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May 25, 2021, 6:49:15 PM5/25/21
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Dear all:

Wiki is a great site! Intelligent scholars are trained to discriminate. Even in talking to people, we discriminate. I don’t use what others tell me about another human being to relate to them. I can be inheriting another person’s hostility, envy, hate, etc. That you have a bad friend does not mean that the person you call a bad person is bad to me. And in any case, you may call a person a bad person because of what he has done to you, which he has not done to me. Or I can have a Yoruba epistemological position that says:

Oro la danu

Ki i se eniyan

Translation: throw away a persons’ words that you disagree with, not the person him/herself. This does not apply to Garba in Aso Rock as I want to throw his words and person away!

 

However, my problems with Wiki are these:

  1. Many of our colleagues, especially in Africa (I know this is a racist statement, and I expect to be crucified), draw on it extensively to create plagiarized essays. This is unfortunate. In the series that I edit, we have had to withdraw two books from the market. Is this Wiki’s fault? No. It is the fault of indiscriminate use and direct lifting.
  2. Like social media, used to exaggerate or fake success, our colleagues, especially those in the diaspora (another racist statement!), create their profiles that read better than those of Nobel Laurettes!
  3. Again like social media, Wiki has been used to tarnish the names of innocent individuals. One time, those who wanted to get rid of Zeleza as President of his University revised his Wiki page to say that he was fired. I read it on the day I spoke with him in his office. Someone on this site was said to have been dismissed from for sexual harassment. Achile Mbebe was described as anti-semitic until the page was revised. And of course, our ambitious man of power, Mr. Tinubu of Lagos, had his page revised many times regarding his age.

Let us continue to use Wiki, but with discrimination.

Meanwhile, I was part of the initiative to create the AfricaWiki. When the financial sponsorship was to come from China, I backed out and got it dismantled. Of course, some of you will be disappointed that we rejected Chinese money but please throw away my decision but not my person.

TF

OLAYINKA AGBETUYI

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May 25, 2021, 7:05:11 PM5/25/21
to usaafric...@googlegroups.com, Oluwatoyin Adepoju

GE

Now you are trying to break Toyin Adepoju's heart with his inexorably insistence on online sources as the ' mother of all souces'

I would not like to describe you as a wicked scholar.


OAA



Sent from my Galaxy



-------- Original message --------
From: "Emeagwali, Gloria (History)" <emea...@ccsu.edu>
Date: 25/05/2021 22:36 (GMT+00:00)
To: Oluwatoyin Adepoju <ovde...@gmail.com>, usaafricadialogue <usaafric...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Israel and Palestine: Peace forallor peace for none

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Professor Gloria Emeagwali
Prof. of History/African Studies, CCSU
africahistory.net; vimeo.com/ gloriaemeagwali
Recipient of the 2014 Distinguished Research
Excellence Award, Univ. of Texas at Austin;
2019 Distinguished Africanist Award
New York African Studies Association

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Harrow, Kenneth

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May 25, 2021, 9:26:25 PM5/25/21
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i return to wiki for information all the time. i profit from it.
i also agree 100% with toyin that we should use it with discrimination.
listin, there are about 101 million books on rwanda since the genocide. printed, by experts, with reputable presses. they completely take sides and contradict each other.
the warning to read w discrimination doesn't begin and end w wiki.
if you want the basic info on an incredibly vast number of topics it is great.
ok, here's the one caveat i've heard, which i believe. orthodox jews, probably brooklyn and maybe israel want to control the narrative about things jewish. if someone goes into a site they want to "own," they oversee it and change it back, or forward, asap.
i don't know how wiki defends itself against that kind of bias.

you can all go into the account of the biafra war and no doubt see an orientation that will please some and displease others.

however, not all info is so hotly contested. i found the disquisition on time, a subject i've been working on, brilliant; and the science as well in all the topics related to quantum mechanics and relativity were really good. they link to a zillion other sites, also excellent.
if any criticism might be proffered, they shortchange many topics. well, they can't do anything.
i told my students to use it, but with wisdom; realize you had to cite it; try to go beyond it, ie, use it as a start on a topic. in that regard most of it is really valuable

gloria goes beyond where i would go, but i agree with her on its standard as not acceptable for scholarly publications, mostly. not entirely. but for information for our exchanges, i think it is fine.
ken

kenneth harrow

professor emeritus

dept of english

michigan state university

517 803-8839

har...@msu.edu

From: usaafric...@googlegroups.com <usaafric...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Toyin Falola <toyin...@austin.utexas.edu>
Sent: Tuesday, May 25, 2021 6:48 PM

Dr. Oohay

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May 25, 2021, 9:29:47 PM5/25/21
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A nuanced advice indeed. 

Harrow, Kenneth

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May 25, 2021, 10:39:25 PM5/25/21
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i want to apologize for my typos. i honestly believe it is age that trips me up. i reread what i've posted, and am embarrassed.
(ok, it's listen...not listin).
sorry about it. i realize it is too many mistakes.
ken

kenneth harrow

professor emeritus

dept of english

michigan state university

517 803-8839

har...@msu.edu

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Sent: Tuesday, May 25, 2021 9:28 PM

Oluwatoyin Adepoju

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May 25, 2021, 10:39:42 PM5/25/21
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The following is inspired by this discussion but is not central to it:

My Journey with the Encyclopedia Britannica

I was initiated into the world of high level scholarship by reading the Encyclopedia Britannica 1971 edition in our family library.

Wonderful writing.

Essays by Sigmund Freud on the field he founded, Psychoanalysis, marvellous essays on a very broad range of knowledge as understood from the perspective of Western scholarship of the time, including a memorable one on African literature with some oral poetry that has remained with me decades later plus an article on "primitive dance" which included a pic of a woman dancing in "the Valley of a Thousand Hills, Natal" (South Africa), an article which initiated me into the biased  perspectival difference represented by the contrast of it's title with that of the other article simply named "dance" and which had such "civilised" dances as ballet.

That Britannica, in it's difference from other editions, also introduced me to the idea of growth in scholarship.

The essay on Isaac Newton deeply regrets his spending so much time on the self deluding practice of alchemy, wondering why such a great mind invested his time so unwisely.

The current Britannica, however, from at least the editions of the past few decades, tells a different story, with the current  one having an essay by Richard Westfall carefully describing how Newton's alchemical work was central to his conventional science.

The Britannica also introduced me to great examples of how to write a scholarly essay in a manner that is both deeply informative and stylistically memorable with lines from some of  it's essays, particularly in superbly resonant opening and closing paragraphs which remain indelible in my memory and which I chant to myself from time to time, savouring the sheer pleasure of sentential rhythm carrying rich ideas to a profound destination, adapting in that sense of textual destination, an expression from another master of the essay, Abiola Irele.

Examples;

"Aurelius Augustinus...Bishop of Hippo in Roman Africa...His mind was the crucible in which the religion of the New Testament was most completely fused with the Platonic tradition of late antiquity.
.....

The Vandal armies were besieging Hippo when Augustine died there in AD 430.
...

His influence has spanned and may one day reconcile the divisions of Western Christendom.

Bernard of Clairvaux, Anselm of Canterbury, Pascal, Sales, Bosseaut, the makers of the English Prayer Book, Reinhold Niehbur and Paul Tillich ( theologians and Christian writers, both Catholic and Protestant, from the Middle Ages to the 20th century- my explanation), all these have, in their different ways drawn inspiration from one in whom they have been compelled to acknowledge " the heart of the matter."

"Verus philosophus est amatore Dei", "the true philosopher is the lover of God".

In these words from the De Civitate ( City of God), Augustine has left us at once the truest portrait of himself and the fullest justification of his life's work".

The Rev John Burnaby on Augustine in Britannica 1971.

"He demonstrated how our divided culture might be reunited in a new ideal of wholeness."

Elizabeth Mary Wilkinson perhaps on German writer Johann Wolfgsng von  Goethe in Britannica 1971.

"... waiting, working and hoping for the miracle of Duino to recur" ( Inspiration that led to great poetry).

Which it did with the inspiration for the Duino Elegies(?) in which "the angels of the Elegies address the poet as he hurtles irrevocably deathwards, urging him to justify his existence by transforming the visible world into visible art".

Britannica 1971 on German writer Rainer Marie Rilke.

"What shall it be today
sickness or health
death or life?

Ha! The flood cannot flow uphill.

What is this evil spirit that throws his shade between me and truth?

I hold my sacred staff against it!

Here is the East.

There is the West.

Here the sun rises.

See truth come riding on the rays of the sun."

"Igbo diviner invokes truth before consulting his bones( divination instruments".

Translation by Romanus Egudu in Black Orpheus in article on African literature by Ulli Beier and Gerald  Moore in Britannica 1971.

Thanks

Toyin

Emeagwali, Gloria (History)

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May 25, 2021, 10:39:55 PM5/25/21
to 'Pamela Smith' via USA Africa Dialogue Series
Point noted.
Thanks

Gloria


Professor Gloria Emeagwali
Prof. of History/African Studies, CCSU


From: 'Pamela Smith' via USA Africa Dialogue Series <usaafric...@googlegroups.com>
Sent: Tuesday, May 25, 2021 5:36 PM
To: usaafric...@googlegroups.com <usaafric...@googlegroups.com>

Subject: RE: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Israel and Palestine: Peace for allor peace for none
 

Please be cautious: **External Email**

Farooq A. Kperogi

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May 25, 2021, 10:41:24 PM5/25/21
to USAAfrica Dialogue
The conversation took this turn only because Gloria dismissed a Wikipedia reference Ken shared, from which I learned a lot, without engaging with it. It was a case of discrimination against a source rather than the quality and facticity of its content. I found that problematic.

 Information doesn't become worthless just because it's from Wikipedia. Wikipedia actually has some of the best general information in the world on a lot of subject matters,  and the article Ken shared is an example. 

No one is arguing that Wikipedia should be used as a scholarly reference of first choice. The discussion on this list is, after all, not a scholarly treatise. 

Even in the protocols of systematic scholarly production, which this conversation obviously isn't, regular encyclopedias, which Wikipedia is only a people-powered electronic incarnation of, are used only as a general guide to get a lay of the land on subject matters about which people have little or no familiarity with.

Farooq 


Twitter: @farooqkperogi
Blog: www.farooqkperogi.com


Sent from my phone. Please forgive typos and omissions.

Pamela Smith

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May 25, 2021, 10:42:32 PM5/25/21
to usaafric...@googlegroups.com

 

Ooops, I forget to send this.

“What's more important than the identities of the authors is the quality of the articles. They're not all great (just like not all peer-reviewed journal articles or books are great), but several are. I'm more interested in an engagement with the content of Wikipedia articles than an obsession with the identities of the authors of the articles.“

 

Farooq, AMEN to this point as well! I just now assembled much-needed information – a list of publication (with dates) for a 5-minute presentation. My time-saver move was to visit Wikipedia, get a starter list of works and double check a few other sources to confirm dates of publication! And I am ready to join in the conversation about this contributor. If, at the end of  my 5- to 10-minute contribution

All your other points are well taken. Wikipedia was never intended to be or act/serve as an end-all, certainly not a guaranteed SOURCE of information!

 

Pam

 

Pamela J. Olúbùnmi Smith, PhD.

Professor Emerita, English, Humanities & Women Studies

Secretary, Association of African Women Scholars (AWWS)

The Goodrich Scholarship Program

University of Nebraska @ Omaha

Omaha, NE 68182

402 980 1649

URL: www.africanwomenstudies.org

         www.yorubadictionary.com

 

 

From: usaafric...@googlegroups.com <usaafric...@googlegroups.com> On Behalf Of Farooq A. Kperogi
Sent: Tuesday, May 25, 2021 9:20 AM
To: Emeagwali, Gloria (History) <emea...@ccsu.edu>
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Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Israel and Palestine: Peace for allor peace for none

 

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Chidi Anthony Opara, FIIM

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May 26, 2021, 4:25:52 AM5/26/21
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"Meanwhile, I was part of the initiative to create the AfricaWiki. When the financial sponsorship was to come from China, I backed out and got it dismantled"-TF

Why? What is wrong with financial sponsorship from China?

-CAO.

Emeagwali, Gloria (History)

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May 26, 2021, 7:37:06 AM5/26/21
to Farooq A. Kperogi, USAAfrica Dialogue
Unfortunately I would do the same to any
use of Wikipedia as a source. What if I made
an entry in Wikipedia and  immediately 
turned around to use it as a source? 
It is volatile. Ken pointed 
to it as a reference. He would have to give
me the specific time of the day that his
reference was there to be credible, and 
for an issue such as the Middle East crisis, 
demonstrate to me who exactly the author
was. Gullibility is not my strong point.

I have the impression that the bibliographic 
material is less variable. 

There are various forms of knowledge 
production and various techniques of
evaluation. Wikipedia is but a gateway to 
information, one of the gateways, and not
the destination. In fact the journey begins
with Wikipedia and you have a long winding 
road ahead of you.


Gloria

Professor Gloria Emeagwali
Prof. of History/African Studies, CCSU
africahistory.net; vimeo.com/ gloriaemeagwali
Recipient of the 2014 Distinguished Research
Excellence Award, Univ. of Texas at Austin;
2019 Distinguished Africanist Award
New York African Studies Association
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Oluwatoyin Adepoju

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May 26, 2021, 7:37:19 AM5/26/21
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Perhaps wariness of control from China

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Emeagwali, Gloria (History)

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May 26, 2021, 7:37:38 AM5/26/21
to 'Pamela Smith' via USA Africa Dialogue Series
They do a reasonable  job with bibliographic
 material. I don’t know if this is done by a special 
contingent within the  organization.

However, because of the variability of
the content I would not recommend it
to my undergraduate students beyond that,
as I said before. Undergraduates have less of 
a capability to discriminate than graduate 
students and can be easily misled. In my
field, facts are not viewed as”fish on the 
fishmonger’s slab” and Wikipedia often
goes in that direction by the nature of
its own methodology. I would be surprised 
if thesis supervisors accepted it as a source.
With due respect to Falola, Farooq and Toyin,
I wouldn’t.

GE






Professor Gloria Emeagwali
Prof. of History/African Studies, CCSU
africahistory.net; vimeo.com/ gloriaemeagwali
Recipient of the 2014 Distinguished Research
Excellence Award, Univ. of Texas at Austin;
2019 Distinguished Africanist Award
New York African Studies Association
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Subject: RE: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Israel and Palestine: Peace for allor peace for none
 

Please be cautious: **External Email**

Cornelius Hamelberg

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May 26, 2021, 9:17:44 PM5/26/21
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Thanks Professor Falola the Elder (since there’s also the Professor Falola the daughter). I pray that the racists and tribalists don’t take your advice to heart, wrench you out of the context of this discussion and misinterpret what you mean by “ Intelligent scholars are trained to discriminate. Even in talking to people, we discriminate. I don’t use what others tell me about another human being to relate to them. I can be inheriting another person’s hostility, envy, hate, etc. That you have a bad friend does not mean that the person you call a bad person is bad to me. And in any case, you may call a person a bad person because of what he has done to you, which he has not done to me. Or I can have a Yoruba epistemological position that says:

Oro la danu

Ki i se eniyan

Translation: throw away a persons’ words that you disagree with, not the person him/herself. This does not apply to Garba in Aso Rock as I want to throw his words and person away!”

Thanks Kenneth Harrow (another director of the big knowledge banks – he invokes Foucault - I dream Rimbaud!) Thanks Gloria in excelsis Emeagwali , the Alpha & O=mega and the theory of everything that ends where the wiki begins. Thanks Toyin Vincent Adepoju (indeed “another master of the essay, Abiola Irele.”, for the persistence of word sense over matter also F. R. Leavis, and, whilst we are at it, to remember, a library is not a university, although libraries are whole universes), thanks Kperogi, thanks everybody, thanks for all the dogmatics, the pseudo science and intro philosophy , but please take note that I do not say thanks to the cherub Assange for his not so witty, weaky leaks ( imagine a doggy raising his hind leg every five minutes or so to take a leak – a pee, leaning against a tree, one, two, three…)

Re - “Teachers teach that knowledge waits
Can lead to hundred-dollar plates...”

A. T. von S. Bradshaw our English Master in the 4th form started his each and every lesson with a Chinese proverb to wit, that “The House of Learning is One!” - we did “ Animal Farm” with him and you can bet that in no time at all we all became authorities on the Bolsheviks, right up to Chiang Kai-shek – this was circa 1962 and there was no internet then but there was an excellent school library and after school circa 2 pm, there was the British Council Library just behind my grandfather Louis Hamelberg’s house at Tower Hill, and that where I spent most of my days, including holy days and holidays. These days, a curious lad would just have to flip open is cellphone and go straight to the Wiki - which does not mean to say that we should agree with Kperogi’s gripe – surely an imagined grudge, no matter how deeply felt, that his beloved wiki “puts knowledge at the fingertips of the "uninitiated" that the "initiated" took years to acquire in the traditional fashion.”.

Not in a hundred thousand years for the simple fact of the matter that neither he nor Wiki in present, past and future digital incarnations/ generations could possibly produce e.g. Under Western Eyes – India – from Milton to Macaulay” by Balachandra Rajan or that kind of readership.

It still a matter of two Jews, three opinions vs “I’m right, you’re dead - do you know better than me? I’m a doctor!”

Even when capturing or internalising the sense, TVA (Adepoju) could remain mindful that Rilke wrote in German, Eliot’s “Murder in the Cathedral “is in English, John the Galilean fisherman’s Gospel is in polished Greek, the immaculate Quran is in the most marvellous gold standard Arabic, therefore so easy to memorise...

In my opinion, God has many mansions, one of which I suppose is wiki, one of many sources of information about the real and the not so real

It’s the exclusiveness of “Wikipedia actually has some of the best general information in the world on a lot of subject matters” like a sentence from a school-man of the 21st century digital age when the twenty something volumes of the Encyclopedia Britannic has been condensed to the size of a matchbox - save so much storage space...



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Emeagwali, Gloria (History)

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May 27, 2021, 6:15:41 PM5/27/21
to Cornelius Hamelberg, usaafric...@googlegroups.com

E. H.Carr made an interesting statement in 
“What is History “ that scholars  should still find 
valuable:

“In the first place, the facts of history never come
to us “pure” since they do not and cannot exist in
a pure form: they are always refracted through
 the mind of the recorder. It follows that when 
we take up a work of history, our first concern 
should be not with the facts which it contains
but with the historian.” 

Who is writing this piece? What ideological 
stand point? What  gender and racial background?
Is he/ she an undercover white supremacist
or a diehard chauvinist?
How did he or she arrive at the current
conclusion? Fieldwork?
Does he/she understand  or speak the source
 language, or is the author relying on translations-
and , if so, is the translator trustworthy, - or is 
he likely to switch words to suit his agenda?
Is the author a Judeomuslim like Cornelius 
the Great , or an irredeemable, unapologetic  
sceptic  like  Gloria Emeagwali of Omega XL
fame?

Carr makes this insightful statement as well:

“No document can tell us more than what the
author of the document thought- what he 
thought had happened, what he thought 
ought to happen or would happen, or perhaps 
only what he wanted others to think he thought, 
or even only what he himself thought he thought.”

Now fast forward to the era of crowd sourcing
 of history and tell me, my dear friends 
and colleagues, how you can proceed in 
engaging these issues with anonymous,
 volatile entries?

Do you know who “Trappist the Monk” is
and  his agenda - important to reflect on
since he has made more than a thousand edits.
And if 90 percent of the edits have been done by 
white males, some  just out of high school,
I wonder if this “wonderful “work is really as
credible as we would like it to be, beyond 
its wonderful  illustrations and bibliographies.

I just checked the entry for Axum and was told
that the empire was brought down by
Queen Judit.  That was at 9.45 am today.
Really? So the Zagwe dynasty
suddenly morphed into this wicked witch
who emerged in the 10th century. What about 
new trade routes and divergence of commercial
networks and the numerous factors usually
associated with the fall of Axum?These are
 written out of the account, of course. 
I also sampled some other topics, many of 
which have multiple links and glittering
cross references that may even divert 
attention from the accuracy of the original 
statement.

“Go and make your own edit, “says Adepoju.
( Fake statement. He didn’t really say so.)

But what is the point of me making a new edit 
at noon when someone could change it at 
midnight? 

Be careful what you defend  and how you
defend it- especially if you are a  scholar.
My apologies for going back to this 
subject and resurrecting the dead thread.
I do recognize as well that my comments are
biased towards History.


Professor Gloria Emeagwali 
Prof. of History/African Studies, CCSU

From: usaafric...@googlegroups.com <usaafric...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Cornelius Hamelberg <cornelius...@gmail.com>
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Cornelius Hamelberg

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May 27, 2021, 6:17:54 PM5/27/21
to Emeagwali, Gloria (History), usaafric...@googlegroups.com

“Judeomuslim like Cornelius”

Of course Cornelius Adebayo, and not the uncircumcised Cornelius the Roman Centurion.

I really like that. If only there were more monotheistic Judeo-Muslims and fewer Trinitarian Judeo-Christians (Extreme Fun-da-mentalist American Evangelical Right-Wing Nutters who want to rebuild the Temple in order to hasten the return of their Redeemer) by now there would have been peace and tranquillity in the Middle East.

Whilst Western Civilisation boasts about moral foundations in Judaeo-Christian traditions, paradoxically, there are some little tensions between the Jesus people and the Jews, going back to the problems between Paul and Peter, James and the other Brethren of the Jesus Cult in Jerusalem – recorded in Galatians and other letters of Paul where he blasts the so called “judaizers”

Similarly, according to Bernard Lewis’ “ The Jews of Islam” in the early days of Islam when a few Jews submitted to Islam , for example Kaʽb al-Aḥbār is especially accused by the Shia of being one of the early judaizers of Islam . There’s the telling episode of Umar and his right hand man Ka’b, in Jerusalem in 636 ( a story that could cause the authors of Article 11 of the Hamas Charter some distress ( from page 71 of “The Jews of Islam”)

“When Umar came to Aelia (Jerusalem)...he said, “Bring me Ka’b “

Ka’b was brought to him, and Umar asked him, “Where do you think we should put the place of prayer?”

“By the rock”, answered Ka’b

“By God, Ka’b, “said Umar,” You are (still) following after Judaism. I saw you take off your sandals!”

“I wanted to feel the touch of it with my bare feet”, said Ka’b

“ I saw you,” said Umar. “ But no… we were not commanded concerning the Rock, but we were commanded concerning the Ka’ba ( in Mecca)

BTW, it's funny that you should apologise for merely "resurrecting the dead" (thread).




Cornelius Hamelberg

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May 27, 2021, 6:18:09 PM5/27/21
to Emeagwali, Gloria (History), usaafric...@googlegroups.com
To GE ( continued) 

 If you think that I’m too soft on al-Islam it’s probably because you’re familiar with the mantra that give and take a few pogroms here and there, on the whole, Hebrew-Arabic & Muslim-Jewish relations were okey-dokey and by comparison throughout the centuries Bani Isra'īl has suffered more horrendous persecution and untold horrors by those who say that they are Christians.

Here’s a very current, tearful complaint: theological incitement within the world council of churches

On the other hand Israel’s most fanatical non-Jewish supporters are to be found among USA’s Evangelical extremists. They are caught in the 4th tempter’s vicious bind,

"The last temptation is the greatest treason

To do the right thing for the wrong reason."

For those Evangelicals, the number three is magical! They want to see The Third Temple as soon as possible, so that Jesus will come back again - that's what they believe -  and this time they say he will convert all the Jews to Christianity – the greatest anti-Semitism possible.

OLAYINKA AGBETUYI

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May 29, 2021, 5:35:33 AM5/29/21
to usaafric...@googlegroups.com
Ken 

Did the Greeks become monotheistic around 7- 6 BCE?

The Greeks were still polytheistic when the Romans sacked Egypt and expropriated it from the Greeks circa 30 BCE which staged the background to Shakespeare's Antony and Cleopatria ( ending Cleopatria's Ptolemaic reign in Egypt and efflorescence of Ptolemaic Mathematics and Astronomical worldview.)


OAA



Sent from my Galaxy



-------- Original message --------
From: 'Pamela Smith' via USA Africa Dialogue Series <usaafric...@googlegroups.com>
Date: 26/05/2021 03:54 (GMT+00:00)
Subject: RE: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Israel and Palestine: Peace forallor peace for none

Boxbe This message is eligible for Automatic Cleanup! (usaafric...@googlegroups.com) Add cleanup rule | More info

 

Ooops, I forget to send this.

“What's more important than the identities of the authors is the quality of the articles. They're not all great (just like not all peer-reviewed journal articles or books are great), but several are. I'm more interested in an engagement with the content of Wikipedia articles than an obsession with the identities of the authors of the articles.“

 

Farooq, AMEN to this point as well! I just now assembled much-needed information – a list of publication (with dates) for a 5-minute presentation. My time-saver move was to visit Wikipedia, get a starter list of works and double check a few other sources to confirm dates of publication! And I am ready to join in the conversation about this contributor. If, at the end of  my 5- to 10-minute contribution

All your other points are well taken. Wikipedia was never intended to be or act/serve as an end-all, certainly not a guaranteed SOURCE of information!

 

Pam

 

Pamela J. Olúbùnmi Smith, PhD.

Professor Emerita, English, Humanities & Women Studies

Secretary, Association of African Women Scholars (AWWS)

The Goodrich Scholarship Program

University of Nebraska @ Omaha

Omaha, NE 68182

402 980 1649

URL: www.africanwomenstudies.org

         www.yorubadictionary.com

 

 

From: usaafric...@googlegroups.com <usaafric...@googlegroups.com> On Behalf Of Farooq A. Kperogi

Sent: Tuesday, May 25, 2021 9:20 AM
To: Emeagwali, Gloria (History) <emea...@ccsu.edu>
Cc: USAAfrica Dialogue <usaafric...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Israel and Palestine: Peace for allor peace for none

 

Non-NU Email

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Harrow, Kenneth

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May 29, 2021, 3:25:49 PM5/29/21
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dear oaa
there was a time, some years ago, when i taught "Humanities," including the greeks. at that time when i taught about their religion, i learned that the polytheistic model started to change in the direction of monotheism. that came about toward the 6-5th centuries. it's maybe kind of subtle, with expression/language from their past describing their gods shifting. you'd need an expert to sort that out. i believe it became dominant by the time of plato.

i am struck how this corresponded more or less to when the same process was happening in judaism, toward what would become the rabbinical period. also jews call themselves monotheistic, as do catholics, muslims, the reality in the past is much more complicated than that. a period arose when the israelites began to assert the primacy of their yahweh over other gods. that may have come after yahweh assimilated other gods into his order. i wonder if gloria can comment on how that same process happened in egypt.
in the torah (the jewish bible), god has several names. that's a pretty good clue; it also happened like that with greek gods that were amalgamations of other gods. all religions are synchronic in that way, if you go back far enough in time.

yeah, everyone knows there were statues etc of greek gods and roman gods; but that was only an outward manifestation which didn't really portray the dominant beliefs.
i know depts of classics are disappearing, but if there is someone on this list who really knows this stuff, perhaps you could get a more precise answer. (me, i'd have to google it!)
ken

kenneth harrow

professor emeritus

dept of english

michigan state university

517 803-8839

har...@msu.edu

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